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Post by Anthony Croasdale

This past Sunday, I participated in the “Big Sit!” at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum (86th and Lindbergh Blvd.). The “Big Sit!” is a bird-a-thon hosted by Birdwatcher’s Digest and is an international informal competition where teams compete to record by sight and sound as many species of bird as possible in a twenty-four hour time period”"the catch is, you are restricted to a fixed 17 foot diameter circle! I chose the observation platform at John Heinz NWR; I work at the refuge as an Americorps VISTA. Our team was named the Philadelphia (de-listed) Eagles, besides the obvious, our name refers the de-listing of the bald eagle from the Endangered Species Act this year, as we are a team representing a national wildlife refuge, we thought it appropriate to highlight this conservation victory.

I started the day out by driving the gator, a six-wheeled off-road golf cart that was filled up with a cooler, a bushel of apples, chairs, scopes and binoculars at 5:30am. I listed for rails and owls but all I could hear in the darkness was geese and herons. The observation deck overlooks the refuge’s impoundment (man-made lake) as well as a stretch of I-95 and the airport, which was quite light up and made for a strange juxtaposition. As dawn approached birds started singing and I identified the songs”"cardinal, song sparrow, eastern towhee”"as the sun cleared the trees the ducks and herons morphed into recognizable images. I was soon joined by my father and friend Steve Kacir…

Local birding legend Frank Windfelder joined us for a while. Frank is trying to see as many bird species in a year as he can in Philly’s city limits; he called later in the afternoon to announce he’s broken the previous record at 226 species. We had many visitors and participants through the day, two local bird clubs brought their field trips to participate. We even listed to the Eagle’s game, maybe the two bald eagles we saw that day was a good omen as the football team eagles finally won a game! A wood duck at dusk was our last bird, we stayed a while after dark but nothing new was heard. We finished the day with 63 species of bird identified. Currently, unless another circle reports a higher total, our team had the highest count for Pennsylvania. I bet you didn’t know Philadelphia had such an amazing resource.

PENNSYLVANIA — CIRCLES: 13 REGISTERED, 9 REPORTING
 Philadelphia(de-listed)Eagles — Tony Croasdale — Philadelphia, PA — 63
 Tall Tale Flycatcher — Nick Pulcinella — West Chester, PA — 52
 Shavers Creek — Greg Grove — Petersburg, PA — 42
 Little Mt Chickadees — Mike Powell — Spring Mills, PA — 8
 Stone Mtn Hawkeyes — Trudy Kyler — Huntingdon, PA — 30
 Bald Eagle SP Storm Birds — Bob Snyder — Bald Eagle State Par, PA — 41
 Waiting For Woodpecker — Kathie Gifford — Linglestown, PA — 16
 Kunkletown Kingbirds — Corey Husic — Kunkletown, PA — 49
 Rose Tree Redtails — Holly Merker — Media, PA — 47

John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge
8601 Lindbergh Blvd, Philadelphia, PA
http://heinz.fws.gov/

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